2017 Ballot Guide to Vote

Tuesday, November 7, 2017 is the day of the elections and it is important that everyone who can vote. Here is a list of propositions.

For a complete list of voting locations in Hidalgo County, click here.

For a complete list of the polling places in Cameron County, click here.

For a complete list of the polling places in Starr County, click here.

For a complete list of the polling places in Willacy County, click here.

Currently, partially disabled veterans get a property tax exemption according to the percentage of their disability on any homes entirely donated to them. This proposed amendment would tweak that law to allow disabled veterans who pay up to half of the donated home to get an exemption too.
This specific tax break for veterans would be expanded to include an additional, but unspecified, number of disabled veterans.

This proposed amendment makes several changes to the home equity loan laws that bankers and realtors support. First, although the cap on fees is lowered from 3 to 2 percent, several items are not counted towards that cap, thereby potentially allowing a higher dollar amount to be assessed in fees. Second, it allows home equity loans to be refinanced as non-home equity loans, possibly resulting in the elimination of judicial foreclosure requirements. Third, home equity lines of credit would now be capped at 80 percent, rather than 50 percent, of the home’s market value.
Consumers borrowing against their home equity will lose some of the protections on their home traditionally provided by the Texas Constitution.

Current law allows for non-salaried gubernatorial appointees to keep serving in their positions if no successor has been duly qualified. As a result, some appointees are held over long after their term expires.
The proposed amendment would allow these appointees to remain in office until the end of the next regular session after their term expires.

A statute required the state attorney general to be given notice that a state law’s constitutionality was challenged, and also prevented a court from striking the law as unconstitutional for 45 days after the notice. That statute was stricken under the principle of separation of powers (the Legislature can’t tell a court what to do.) SJR 6 proposes to authorize the notice and 45-day waiting period.
Courts should be able to give Texans relief from unconstitutional laws as soon as possible without a mandated waiting period

“The constitutional amendment on professional sports team charitable foundations conducting charitable raffles.”

“The constitutional amendment authorizing the legislature to provide for an exemption from ad valorem taxation of all or part of the market value of the residence homestead of the surviving spouse of a first responder who is killed or fatally injured in the line of duty.”

This amendment would create the Texas Savings Promotion Act, which allows credit unions to offer prizes to members who deposit savings into their own accounts. The proposition is meant to address possible conflicts with the Texas Constitution’s prohibition on gambling.
The so-called “prize-linked savings accounts” are an innovative way to induce people to save more, thereby preventing them from resorting to payday lenders.